Bandits & Organized Crime

Could there be a hidden group of bandits in the wilderness of Felarya? Perhaps a mix of human and nekos, or whatever group could survive off of robbing adventurers and explorers?

Robbing adventures and explorers?
Only those who had found valuables in some lost temple or ruined settlement.
Even then I doubt it. They'd have to be very well armed, treasure hunters and adventures in Felarya are always armed. THat begs the question of where they are getting their ammo and weapons. (They would have to sue guns, other adventures do. If they don't they're not going to be robbing many people).
In addition, where are they going to stash their loot and where are they going to sell it? the major commercial centre is in Negav though I'm sure they could have a deal with some traders...

Deleted

Deleted NOOB post

gt500x wrote:

Could there be a hidden group of bandits in the wilderness of Felarya? Perhaps a mix of human and nekos, or whatever group could survive off of robbing adventurers and explorers?

I think bandits and raiders would be a fairly decent threat, and there are likely some people that come to Felarya just for that.

I imagine they would be most common near Negav, or known treasure-hunting spots and predator territories.

The fact is, in Negav, you have people coming in from dozens of different worlds, carrying all kinds of weapons, tools, supplies, technology and valuables. I would imagine robbery, mugging and breaking and entering would be an serious issue in Negav. The Negavian police would be more than busy keeping the crime down in what is for the most part a massive frontier town. You have the richer districts where the mages, merchants and magiocrats live, but I could see the poorer areas being akin to frontier towns of the wild west. Lots of bars, and hangout spots, and lots of tough adventurers and bandits from all over.

That's in Negav, now you have to think about the near-Negav region. This is an area of the wilderness, largely devoid of Predators thanks to The Eye and Negav's defensive guns, where a large number of people are either coming in (with fresh loot from treasure-hunting), or going out (full of supplies, weapons and valuables brought from their homeworld or purchased in Negav). It is the perfect location to prowl around and try to rob people. Not to mention you have the stream of valuable gems that are constantly being shipped in from the mines in the Ascarlin mountains. Those WOULD likely be excessively armed though, and protected by the Isolon Fist...but even stealing just one shipment could make you massively wealthy.

You would have some that go into the forest itself too. These would likely be smaller groups, and more experienced in survival. Probably with some Neko members to act as guides. They would move around between known treasure locations, and rob any adventurers they come across. Some may even sneak around within known predator hunting territories to scavenge the valuables and supplies the preds leave behind. As long as you are experienced and stealthy, it is perfectly possible to sneak around and not get caught. After a certain amount of time, they would return to Negav to sell their loot, relax a bit and re-supply themselves.

Now, this raises the question of what would people do about this? Well, in Negav itself you have the regular police force, but they can only do so much. I would imagine personal weapons are carried by nearly everyone. Be it a dagger, or a pistol, kind of like in an old west town. This explains why you have people going out into the forest with shotguns, pistols, swords, spears and assault rifles. They aren't for use against the predators, they are to protect themselves against other humans and nekos.

This would also make the Mercenary and/or Private Security Contractor industry in Felarya very lucrative. All the big merchants and traders probably wouldn't trust the Negavian police to keep them safe, so they will hire on Mercs or Private Security Contractors to keep their business safe. There are probably people that come to Felarya just for that kind of work.

EDIT: I doubt the crime would be very organized. Lots of smaller groups, instead of some big, mafia-esque type organization. Negav would just be too chaotic for that.

i got a good name i use for 2 in comands Miss Viper. Here that title could be real litarle.

Other good title / names are

Madam Snake

Ice

Deamos

Halloween

NOOB post, nothing to see here! MOVE ALONG!

theres a ice power sccubus in the wiki so i think it works normale

The problem with large scale organised crime is that they will always be outmatched when it comes to magic. The reason for this is that the only mages that would join a large organised crime ring would be the ones that aren't good enough to get employed or join a legal mage organisation.
Therefore, their magic defences are going to be terrible. So once the crime organisation pisses of the magiocrats or other organisation with magic, they will be crushed.
There is no way that large organised crime would survive since it would attract the attention of the magiocrats.

So it is as rcs619 said, it would never get to the large scale.

Not true powerful sycotic or under handed greedy one would also join so would saditic sicos

Those people would be recognised during training and either not trained for flat out eliminated if they were dangerous enough.
The magiocrats keep a close eye on those sorts of things, even if a trained mage joined organised crime, he still wouldn't be able to do anything against the magiocrats.

On top of that, the organised crime rings aren't going to want violent and sadistic mages, since they're too hard to control.

I don't know much about the magicrots. I'm gonna have to do a little digging. So far they're starting to sound a bit over powered collectively.

gt500x wrote:

I don't know much about the magicrots. I'm gonna have to do a little digging. So far they're starting to sound a bit over powered collectively.

The Magiocrats are one of the two groups that run the city of Negav. They are a group of the most powerful and influencial mages in the city, and are responsible for maintaining and protecting The Isolon Eye.

They also have a private army known as The Isolon Fist, a group of hand-picked battlemages and soldiers that look after their assets and act on their orders. We've seen in the manga that Isolon Fist battlemages can be extremely powerful, with two of them able to take on a naga.

The other group that runs Negav are the Vishmitals. They are exiles from a destroyed world that made it to Felarya. They are a highly technologically focused race, and they help develop and provide weaponry for themselves and The Isolon Fist. They also supplied the cannons, anti-aircraft guns, and missiles found in Negav's walls.

I take it they keep each other in check right? If not, what is in place to keep one groups power from going unchallenged?

gt500x wrote:

I take it they keep each other in check right? If not, what is in place to keep one groups power from going unchallenged?

Its a shaky balance, because they both need eachother.

The Magiocrats are the only ones who know how to maintain The Isolon Eye, which helps drive away predators and keep the city safe...and the Vishmitals help supply the weapons and technology needed to keep the Negavian military equipped, which has given them a lot of support from the military (this is probably why the Magiocrats created the Isolon Fist, since the regular Negavian military has a decent sized chunk that supports the Vishmitals).

Neither side can afford to take on the other, or the whole city could potentially be left defenseless.

I see. There's probably not any one or ones crazy enough to disturb that balance.
Thanks for the feedback.

As others have said, smaller crime groups would be best. Get too big, they draw attention they do not want. Some sort of "official" groups might exist as a puppet of one of the larger branches (Ex: A "Thieves" guild that's more akin to a training academy for official Magiocrat espionage / subterfuge / "re-acquisition"), but in such cases the majority of members (if not all, depending on how seriously the larger branches take them) will be under official control, and thus be unlikely to have much members roaming around at-large unless they want a political fiasco.

Of course, there is the possibility of such powers supplying raiders and the like. Say for instance Nekomura does not like a neighboring Elf settlement that's developing very close to their borders, but isn't submitting to join 'em in an alliance (Nekomura can be easily swapped out with Negav if speaking big cities, or any other village / settlement otherwise). Now, one of the big advantages the Elf settlement sees in not needing to join-up is their ability to drive off most thing harassing them, and locale making them a poor choice for most Giant Predators. Nekomura could heavily up the ante to give into their demands, overall reducing general control but "legitimately" taking them into their fold.

Or they could buff up some of those Raider bands that are harassing the settlements. Not enough that they can sweep over: No, that'd just make things worse for Nekomura. But instead, the Raiders get some "anonymous beneficiary aid" from Nekomura. Just enough to make their attacks more telling, but not enough to put the settlement at immediate risk. Nekomura lets them simmer for a while, before they have two choices:

1) Offer to help pledge military might to push back the raiders (whom, if done right, aren't too powerful) at the cost of the settlement losing sovereignty. Elves lose raiders, Nekomura gains settlement at much more favorable terms, there's a fresh thought of Nekomura starting off their control with a benevolent act (or more, since they can then take puppet actions to further increase defenses while protecting Elf and their own interests).

2) Claim that the Raiders are becoming too great a threat to rivaling Nekomura-aligned settlements in the vicinity, launch an attack (Of course, after cutting aid to stretch their new supplies thin). Launch a decisive enough blow, you can get the people of said Elf settlement on your side even if the leaders still refuse to join now. After all, who were the ones who wiped out the raiders? Who were the ones who offered further protection under mostly agreeable terms from further attack?

Of course, it's not impossible for such schemes to fail (let alone fail spectacularly), but it's a common political tactic anyways to anonymously fund raiders and the like who're putting pressure on your opponents, either for a situation like above (to get them to cave into demands) or just generally to put limits on your opponents as they're constantly pressed from external factors.



As for thieves' themselves, in terms of bands? There's many places such groups could hide on Felarya, but the overall effectiveness of such depends. Unless in the middle of bum-feth nowhere, odds are that - if they make themselves known to be a common annoyance - some local power will eventually move in to eliminate them (unless the losses from letting them continue for some time are overall lesser than the costs of letting them continue to operate for a bit longer). If in the middle of bum-feth nowhere: Congrats, who the heck are you going to rob now?

People like them seem more shady then then the bad guys id say they have people that work with or in the crimle gropes or atles recive kick-backs from them. given how in real life most goverments or politcle or miltary grops have had or do deal with lowlifes. Exsampoles: briten pay of irshes crime grops to disrup the irshes politcle systome. Russian goverment sold weapons to the black markit to suplamint there income. And mob pays of police all the time in itoly.

It's an interesting thread ^^
I didn't thought about it until now, but it's clear that the jungle surrounding Negav would be full of raiders, thugs and bandits.

Heh, those bandits wouldn't get too close to Negav. The wall gunners don't have all that much to shoot at with the Isolon Eye doing it's job and nobody will mind if a few bandits don't turn up to raid the next caravan.

That said, I agree that there would be bandits and thugs preying on the common roads and routes around Negav. However, if the raids got too frequent the traders and adventurers might enlist some help to put down the threat since trade is the lifeblood of Negav.

All we have to do is look at the real world. It seems where ever there is a will, there is a way for crime to take hold. We can't afford to dismiss a threat because of confidence in our own invulnerabilty. That's when we set ourselves up for the shock of a lifetime. We're confident that our safe guarding measures will protect us but its the one we haven't thought of that will be exploited by the relentless evil that lives among us.

I'm not saying the criminal element is a serious threat, I'm just saying don't think it can't find the cracks in Negav, or any other city's armor. As for travellers and explorers, they can enlist help but the threat will never be put down. We're talking about intelligent lifeforms not rodents, they will find a way to rebound. It will be especially difficult dealing with a small organized group if their head is protected within another city's walls.

I'm aware of how airtight the Magicrots seem to keep their ranks, but I would still advise them not to put anything past any of its current or former members. That goes for the Vishmitals as well.

My final thought/question: I'm sure the criminal type outside the cities never stay put. They'd be like a moving village. With the severe threat of predators out there, how many can a city like Negav afford to designate for the hunting of these criminals?

I didn't say they'd eradicate it completely.
I agree that there would be small groups of criminals, each doing their own thing. What I am saying is that if one group started to get too big and organised the others, then someone would try to deal with them. They're not going to be designating people every day to hunt the criminals.

Quote :

My final thought/question: I'm sure the criminal type outside the cities never stay put. They'd be like a moving village. With the severe threat of predators out there, how many can a city like Negav afford to designate for the hunting of these criminals?

Indeed, I had thought so too.
Even in our history, pirates and criminals never camped in one place too long.

This really depend how much of a pain in the ass they prove to be I think. If they stick to rob travellers and adventurers, I imagine Negav would send some guards to patroll the surrounding safe zone and act retroactively.
However if they start to ambush ascarlin convoys, they would get a bataillon ready to hunt them in the actual jungle very fast.

and that is what u have rangers for...kind of like America's expansion to the west. they'd get rid of Bandits and clear the way for convoys or caravans so the citizens would resume their journey feeling safe . I'd assume there's some people with a lot of off-world weapons and supplies that would do that for a living in negav.

Karbo wrote:

This really depend how much of a pain in the ass they prove to be I think. If they stick to rob travellers and adventurers, I imagine Negav would send some guards to patroll the surrounding safe zone and act retroactively.
However if they start to ambush ascarlin convoys, they would get a bataillon ready to hunt them in the actual jungle very fast.

I assume it'd be better and safer to stick to the former. Even if the opportunity of obtaining thousands of Ascarlin crystals is incredibly tempting, it would attract too much attention from Negav, and contrary to popular belief, Negav's military/law enforcement/whatever isn't primarily composed of Red Shirts.